This article examines the metafictional representations in Narayan Wagle's Palpasa Café (2008). The novel's metafictional elements depict the state of the Nepalese people during the Civil War. Wagle critiques the devastating consequences of the Civil War and how it affected the Nepali individuals' psyche. The study elucidates Wagle's use of metafiction as an indirect commentary on the political status quo. The study also uses allegory to explicate the metafictional elements in the novel in order to highlight Wagle's fictional critique. Allegory is elaborated in terms of paradox. Paradoxical allegory reveals the implicit metafictional authorial presence in the novel's narrative structure to accentuate the author's subjective voice. Such authorial presence is conveyed via insinuating self-reflexivity device which allows the author to intervene in his narrative fabric. The study mainly focuses on the authorial metafictional interference within the fictional text through paradoxical allegory. Both allegory and paradox have an interrelation with metafiction which unravels the author's relative perspective on the tragic consequences of the Nepalese Civil War.

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an innovative approach to language learning. Its effectiveness has been the subject of empirical studies in English as a foreign language and second language contexts such as Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Pakistan, Iran, and Nigeria. Although the results have been promising, research in this area is still very scant. This paper examines studies that have been done on PBL with the aim of ascertaining what has been achieved and what areas warrant further research. The researchers conducted an online search using scientific databases to identify studies that had dealt with problem-based language learning. They found that most studies focused on the effect of PBL on the productive skills of speaking and writing, and were conducted mainly using quantitative and experimental approaches. They suggested that more studies could be done using qualitative approaches that examined the processes involved, as well as studies on PBL assessment.

Cognitive thinking, English as a foreign language (EFL), English as the second Language (ESL), higher order thinking skill, language learning, problem-based learning (PBL)

3

An Ideology of Crossing Nation: From Conflict to Emergence Abirami, T. and Alamelu, C.

The present study deeply analyses the different perspectives of the immigrants towards their country of destination which results in the categorisation of immigrants as either diaspora or transnationals. It also explores the way in which diaspora and transnationalism begin to swerve in their paths; the immigrant's roots and routes are alike but their standpoints are unlike. The act of crossing nation is shared between the two but the different perspectives of the immigrant enable them to develop distinct ideologies which streams to assorted conclusions such as diaspora or transnationals. The channel of diaspora is brimmed with thorns and speed breakers like loneliness and estrangement, that dwindles the speed of the progressive status of the migrants to authorise their identity and they wander in-between the social spaces influenced by the host community and migrated society. Whereas, the boulevard of transnationalism is suffused with restricted speed breakers like nostalgia; it is a smooth lane filled with opportunities of being in more than one place simultaneously to the migrants and ends in acquiring the global identity by overcoming all the impediments in their lives. The objective of the present study is to identify the distinctions of the two concepts and analyse the different perspectives of the immigrants through the novels Zadie Smith's White Teeth and Colm Toibin's Brooklyn under the light of the conventional assimilation theory and assemblage theory.

Among Thomas Hardy's female characters, Sue Bridehead (the female protagonist in Jude the Obscure 1895) seems very powerful and many readers may consider her as Hardy's feminist female character, who stands against all the existing forces of her time and wants to defend her status quo. Reading this article clarifies that, although Sue wants to say something new in women's case, she is not supported through the story and rather her portrayal shows that a woman, in the Victorian society, is the weaker sex and even if she wants to change or break the rules she cannot simply because she is a woman. Therefore, portrayal of Sue supports this idea that, while Hardy highlights women's problems and inequalities it is merely to emphasise the existing social and religious situations of the Victorian era. In this light, Hardy's portrayal of Sue does not follow the basic tenets of Christian feminism. This article, considering the main images of sin, salvation and Eve (a temptress), illustrates that Hardy's portrayal of Sue is not in accordance with Christian feminism; therefore, Sue cannot be considered as Hardy's feminist figure.

This paper discusses agreement in syntactic order of Mehri. It investigates how VSO and SVO are derived and proposes an alternative analysis based on Chomsky's (2008) feature-based-inheritance approach which seeks to provide a unified account on the subject. It shows that regardless of whether the DP is located in [Spec-v*P] in VSO order or in [Spec, TP] and [Spec-TopP] (Topic Phrase) in SVO order, the Agreement can be applied and unvalued uninterpretable features are valued and deleted by matching them with their valued interpretable counterparts. We argue that since the edge feature of the head C of the CP phase is inherited by the Top head or T head, the (in)definite DPs in Mehri are raised from [Spec, v*P] to [Spec-TopP] and [Spec, TP] in SVO order, which can be dominated by CP projection, as assumed in Chomsky (2008). Besides, we contend that T in VSO order lacks an edge feature inherited from C. Therefore, the genuine DP must stay in-situ in [Spec, v*P], while the lexical verb moves higher to T in TP layer, not to Foc in FocP (Focus Phrase) as argued by Musabhien (2009), and show full agreement with the post-verbal DP. We also assume that in SVO order the definite DP is a Topic, whereas the indefinite DP is a Pre-verbal subject. In VSO order, the post-verbal DP is a subject. Given these, Top and T heads inherit probe features from C and immediately agree with DP via either short-distance agreement in SVO order or long-distance agreement in VSO order.

Studies have shown that infertility may be caused by male factors, female factors, a mixture of both male and female factors, or due to unexplained reasons. Nevertheless, in some societies, infertility is frequently seen as solely a woman's problem and women with infertility problems are often forced to suffer blame and humiliation in silence. For example, in Malaysia, a barren married woman is looked down upon, has a lower status, and may be divorced from her husband. Infertility becomes a taboo topic and therefore, not much is known about Malaysian women with infertility problems. However, with the anonymity afforded by computer-mediated communication (CMC), these women are now turning to the online medium for help. This study uses the web content analysis method to investigate the inquiries made by Malaysian women over in-vitro fertilization (IVF), a type of infertility treatment, in a local online forum. The findings revealed that the questions asked by women in the forum were primarily concerned with seeking information about IVF. Other types of questions asked include opinion-seeking and questions requesting experience-sharing. These women were also found to use various solidarity strategies to support and encourage one another in persevering with their treatment.

To some teachers, professional development is seen as a burden and not as a chance to improve their practice as the reforms have intended. To this end, this study meant at identifying the public school and private institute EFL teachers' perception towards self-initiated professional development in Iran. Using random cluster sampling, Professional Development Questionnaire was filled out by 82 teachers (working either in private language institutions or public schools) to examine the perceptions of Iranian EFL teachers toward their professional development. Furthermore, this study aimed to explain what major professional development activities English language teachers perceive as critical to their development as professionals and to what degree they make use of these opportunities. This study also investigated if there is any significant difference between the perceptions of Iranian public school and private institute language teachers with regard to the concept of professional development in terms of their gender. Finally, this study investigated the obstacles that might have caused some problems for public and private English language teachers regarding their professional development. The findings revealed key differences in these two groups in terms of motivational factors, gender inclination towards teaching profession, the obstacles they face and the activities they are engaged at to enhance their professional development. The possible reasons behind these differences have been discussed and implications of the study are presented.

ESL/EFL teachers, language centre, private institution teachers, professional development, public school teachers, self-initiated professional development

8

Distorted Resistance: A Re-Read of Red Blooms in the Forest as Naxal and Leftist Frankensteins Narendiran, S. and Bhuvaneswari, R.

Young Adult Literature is still an emerging term in India, yet it has broken the stereotype that it deals only with superficial issues and is a less serious literary genre. Nilima Sinha's first Young Adult Novel Red Blooms in the Forest effectively brings out the victimisation of people and the reasons for young adults' deliberate involvement and participation in the Naxal movement. Naxalism, which is considered to be the greatest threat to internal security of India, started with the objective to liberate the rural masses from the clutches of the feudal class. The current economic policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation have significantly affected the livelihood of the rural masses and puts social welfare and employment in jeopardy. The economic reforms induced by corruption and poverty have triggered social crisis on people from every stratum of society. The study analyses the young adult novel Red Blooms in the Forest and brings out the view that the Naxal movement, which was started to liberate the rural masses, has now turned into a trap. The distorted resistance has proved to be a Frankenstein monster that threatens the capitalists, the downtrodden/the oppressor and the oppressed alike.

This essay is based on a comparative analysis of The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov and A Streetcar named Desire by Tennessee Williams. The main objective of this essay is to give a complex analysis of these pieces revealing similar forms and ideas, recurrent motifs, symbols, theatrical devises used by both playwrights, and show their place in the aesthetic systems of both artists, and in the world picture they draw in their dramas. Unlike many other modem interpreters of classics who often use well known plots to express totally different if not the opposite meaning, Williams remaining an original and imaginative playwright follows the path laid by Chekhov, developing in his works a similar poetic style, widening and enriching the scale of expressive devices, which is shown on the basis of comparative analysis. And the major affinity is not even in the likeness of particular plots, characters or artistic means but in the fact that both artists tend to depict concrete situations in a broad historical and philosophic perspective. Therefore, their plays acquire a symbolic meaning, becoming emblems of the time, epoch and human life as such. This, as I try to show, is the major thing Williams learnt from Chekhov.

Artistic means, style, comparative analysis, drama, motifs, symbols

10

Evidentials in Research Articles: A Marker of Discipline Mohsen Khedri

By taking a mixed-methods research design and in a comparative corpus, the present study explored evidentials use in empirical articles in four disciplines: Applied Linguistics, Psychology, Environmental Engineering, and Chemistry. The study aimed to investigate the extent to which writers belonging to different communities vary in their strategic use of evidence markers in written academic discourse. To this end, a representative sample of 80 research articles written in the selected disciplines comprised the corpus of the study. The functional-contextual analysis reported significant cross-disciplinary variations in the writers' rhetorical behavior of using evidentials in their writings. Notable variations were found in the discursive functions of evidentials used in the sampled research articles. The variations could be attributed to the amount of rhetorical sensitivity to and awareness of purpose, disciplinary propensities, and the tendencies of the disciplinary genre. The present findings can be helpful in the teaching and learning of academic writing and may give some insights to rhetorical practices of members in the disciplinary communities studied.

This research assesses the understanding of plagiarism among first year Malaysian university students. The assessment is crucial to chart future directions in promoting good academic practices and academic integrity among the first year university students at the initial stage of their university academic journey. Specifically, the research objectives are to determine the extent of first year students' understanding of plagiarism in identifying plagiarism and non-plagiarism acts. Data collection involved administration of a quantitative survey among first year university students via purposive sampling. The findings present a lack of understanding of fundamental concepts of plagiarism among first year university students. In particular, the first year students displayed ambiguity in distinguishing between plagiarism and non-plagiarism acts. The implications of the findings call for the attention of university management, educators, and students towards the implementation of necessary policy priorities in inculcating and sustaining good academic practices among university students.

Approaches used for English language teaching and learning have been changing from time to time. Incorporation of technology into learning is believed to be able to bring positive effects to learners such as up-to-date, novelty, creative and innovative learning environment. This study aims to examine the effects of using tablet-based digital storytelling application in English language learning among young ESL learners. For this purpose, qualitative case study approach is employed to explore the effects of using the digital storytelling application on English language learning among Primary Five learners. Six Primary Five learners were selected using purposive sampling method. Interviews and observations were used to collect data from the six research participants studying in a public primary school in a state in Malaysia. Results revealed the positive effects of tablet-based digital storytelling on English language learning among the young ESL learners. Meanwhile, learners reported improvements in their English language skills such as listening, reading, speaking and writing via the use of digital storytelling application. This paper also discusses implications of the study.

In doctor-patient communication, Indonesian medical students use vocative kin terms (addressing patients as in the familial address system) at all stages of history taking for patients. Previous research in Java described the use of polite Indonesian vocative kin terms in an institutional setting in Bali and Lombok. The present study addresses the following research questions: 1) At what ages do medical students agree with the use of polite vocative Indonesian kin terms to strengthen the bonds between them and their patients? 2) Do the ethnic backgrounds of the students' parents influence the use of polite vocative kin terms? This research used a qualitative descriptive approach. The results shows that the medical students agree that such usage deepens the bonds at the heart of doctor-patient communication. In addition, the ethnic background of the medical students' parents had no influence on whether polite vocative Indonesian kin terms were used.

One basic factor that influences perception of lexical stress is the number of syllables found in the word and the syllable weight as lexical stress is often assigned to heavy syllables. However, what is considered as a heavy syllable is language specific and this causes problems when two different language systems interact as in the case of second language learning. This paper reports the findings of a study that examined the identification of lexical stress by ESL learners to identify specific syllable structure in English that may pose difficulty to Iraqi learners of English. The results showed that Iraqi Arabic subjects performed poorer in trisyllabic words compared to disyllabic words. High error rates were obtained when the words had two superheavy syllables or two or more equally heavy syllable. Words with long vowels and final consonant clusters, considered as superheavy syllables, often attract stress in Iraqi Arabic but the distribution of such syllables is often more restricted in Arabic. However this is not the case in English and this difference in the distribution of heavy and superheavy syllables influences perception of lexical stress among Iraqi ESL learners. The results show that Iraqi Arabic learners' ability to correctly identify lexical stress is influenced by their native language experience, in particular the L1 stress patterns and strong dependence on syllable structure in lexical stress assignment in Iraqi Arabic.

This short communication explains that kita 'we' has an alternative usage as a singular personal pronoun, presented as kita 'I'. The usage of kita is classified into six classes, based on its substitutability with saya and the context in which kita occurs. The purpose of this paper is to prove that there are three contexts that render kita a singular pronoun: (i) the speaker refers to people in general to share her point of view; (ii) the speaker wants to share information with a group of people whom she knows; (iii) the speaker exercises negative politeness.

In this study, the researchers used a mixed method employing both quantitative and qualitative approaches to investigate the level of Tourism students' oral presentation anxiety and to determine their feelings when doing oral presentations. The participants in this study were 45 Thai EFL Tourism students from the Faculty of Business Administration who enrolled in the course, English for Tour Guides I. McCrosky's (1970) PRSA quantitative surveys were used to determine the level of Tourism students' oral communication anxiety. The qualitative focus group interview was conducted to better understand their feelings when doing oral presentations. The quantitative data obtained were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 and presented in the form of descriptive statistics with percentages. The qualitative focus group interview was analyzed using content analysis to better understand their feelings while delivering oral presentations as a tour guide and to determine ways to reduce their anxiety. The results from the PRSA showed that Thai EFL students experience moderately high levels of anxiety in delivering oral presentations. The results from PRCA also revealed that the majority of Thai EFL students have high Oral Communication Apprehension (OCA) levels in all communication contexts. The results from the focus group interview revealed that most Thai EFL students have a high level of anxiety in their oral presentations. These students were very excited that caused them to forget the content. They were afraid of delivering oral presentations because of inadequate preparation for the speaking task.

Anxiety, English for tour guides, oral presentation anxiety, tourism students

17

Exploring Indonesian Interference on Morpho- Syntactic Properties by Javanese Speakers: A Case Study of English Lecturers and Students' Interaction in Two Colleges in East Java, Indonesia Dwi Astuti Wahyu Nurhayati, Djatmika, Riyadi Santosa and Tri Wiratno

This paper presents an analysis of integrating morpho-syntactic theory in Indonesian interference which is influenced by lexical terms in L1 (Javanese) and L2 (Indonesian). The data were collected through questionnaires with a set of 12 open-ended questions, 14 durative texts containing interference in lecturer-student interaction, observation, interviews, and discussions with some experts in related research. This study involves 249 Indonesian undergraduate students who were majoring in English, and took speaking class, and joined presentations in content courses, together with their 10 English lecturers. The students and English lecturers conducted communicative classroom interactions in English teaching and learning process in IAIN and STKIP PGRI Tulungagung, East Java Indonesia. The data was analysed using a descriptive qualitative approach. The finding revealed that nine morpho-syntactic types and patterns of Indonesian interference are developed significantly with morpho-syntactic classification and properties including number, case, tense, mood, diathesis, agreement, comparative degree, aspect, and word class; three main patterns consisting of phrases (NP, VP, Adj P, Adv P), clauses and sentences. Interference is defined as the tendency to misuse English, which is students' L3 (third language) in student-student and student-lecturer interaction due to the influence of Indonesian and Javanese structures. The study also showed that both L1 and L2 could not be the predicting factors in interference occurrence. This may be attributed to their competence in acquiring a foreign language such as English. The results highlight that contextual English learning efforts based on students' needs and English lecturers' competence should be created. As English teachers and lecturers, they can make an effort by fulfilling the requirements as professional advanced models.

This study attempts to examine the English Language experience of international students who pursue graduate programs in Singapore. International study or work experience has often been discussed in the topics of acculturation in communication scholarship and has provided important insights into the unique language challenges faced by students who move into new places, such as academic writing and speaking issues, social adjustment hassles, and so on. However, most of such discussions have been set in a Western context and also do not explore language as the central or the only topic of its discussion. In addition, articulations of language experience in an Asian context, especially in the setting of a multicultural and culturally accommodative (cosmopolitan) country of Singapore, is yet to be explored extensively. This study seeks to make a contribution in the context of this specific gap in research locating its insights specifically in the expressions of language experience among students in an Asian context. By using semi-structured in-depth interviews, the study seeks to collate and analyze English language experiences as well as identify connections between home and host country's language and cultural experience among international students in Singapore.

A figure of speech, or trope, is often used to communicate ideas as mental models that go beyond the literal and common use of words. The present study is a discourse analysis of 50 titles delivered by 15 al-Qa'ida and ISIS leaders between 2005 and 2015. It is conducted to: 1) investigate the use of figures of speech in non-state leaders' rhetorical titles, and 2) analyze the types of figurative language most frequently employed in their hortatory discourse of jihad. Their tropes are analyzed because figurative language is not neutral vis-Ã -vis politics and is frequently situated in relation to a jihadist ideology. To achieve the objectives of this study, Leigh's (1994) framework, which includes his categorization of various types of tropes, was adopted to analyze the 50 titles sourced from three different sources, including international websites that are directly linked to the non-state leaders themselves. Our content analysis includes frequency measures of wordplays as well as qualitative evaluations of the selected titles. The results reveal that certain figures of speech â€“ namely allusions, metaphors and ironies â€“ were widely used while others were not. Also, some tropes such as oxymorons and parallelisms were simply not utilized at all. These findings are of vital interest to instructors, students and scholars engaged in media discourse and pragmatics, as well as rhetorical analysis and politics of language. Directions for future research are also outlined.